Tuesday, September 04, 2007

A Finish and a Start

Well I bit the bullet, so to speak, on Sunday and made a start on the single bed quilt I'm going to make for Romily (she won't be moving into a full size single for a while yet, so I have plenty of time!). I cut lots of strips of aqua and lime green and sewed them into stripes in preparation for chopping and rearranging for an internal and external border. It's funny to start from the border, but that's where I need to start.

Post-modern seaweed?

I calculated I need 400 inches (!) of strips for all the borders, which worked out at 30 strips all up. I tell you what, an afternoon of sewing in straight lines sure made a lot more progress than an afternoon spent making jeans for nephews!

Speaking of nephews, I finally finished the softie bears I have been making for them also for their birthdays. I had almost finished one of them a while back, but I just couldn't get the face right, and had ripped it out twice, so was a little disheartened. I finally got around to attacking them again tonight and tried something different - I am much happier with the end result. I decided close enough is good enough, as, no doubt, these toys will be discarded with all the others once the excitement of the birthday has died down!

It's nice to have finally finished the softies - they were fun to make (well mostly, anyway), but I much prefer sewing clothes and quilting. Much prefer!

I definitely have the sewing bug though. I have bought around 10 metres of dress fabric for pants, skirts, dresses and jackets for Romily, as well as a bundle of patterns (and that's in addition to what's in Ottobre!). I am NOT ALLOWED within 50 metres of any real or online fabric shops until the end of the year! Not with the way my credit card looks at the moment, at any rate...

So that means the doll quilt swap I've joined with the EB Quilters (there's a link in the right menu bar) will have to be made from stash - actually that's quite an exciting prospect, as for the first time I have developed a stash! It's tiny, to be sure, but it's a stash nonetheless :)

A very cruisy start to the working week this week - I've spent the past two days on a 'working in teams' workshop. I've been working in teams for the best part of 20 years, so have a lot of experience, but not a lot of understanding of the theory behind it. I like doing these workshops every now and then - they're kind of a touchstone and remind you of the most effective ways of working with people coming from different backgrounds/values/outlooks than you. Very useful. And, as I am taking this Friday and coming Monday off, I only have two days left in the office this week and a short week again next week. This is a very good thing, coming on the back of one of the busiest months I've had at work in recent memory :)

However, I unfortunately did not make it to the movies last night - I discovered the French film of Lady Chatterley's Lover (see previous post for links) runs for three hours! That's three hours of subtitles on a Monday night after a long day spent in training, resulting in mushy brain syndrome - no thanks! It'll keep for DVD!

The borders look great, how organized of you!Love the softies, and well done on all the fabric for your girl, I think I am probably on my last year for a while of being able to make dresses for my girl! Tracey